rtain of the properties of the theatre."

There are many other plays in the course of which genuine food is
consumed on the stage. But some excuse for the generally fictitious
nature of theatrical repasts is to be found in the fact that eating
during performance is often a very difficult matter for the actors to
accomplish. Michael Kelly, in his "Memoirs," relates that he was
required to eat part of a fowl in the supper scene of a bygone
operatic play called, "A House to be Sold." Bannister at rehearsal had
informed him that it was very difficult to swallow food on the stage.
Kelly was incredulous however. "But strange as it may appear," he
writes, "I found it a fact that I could not get down a morsel. My
embarrassment was a great source of fun to Bannister and Suett, who
were both gifted with the accommodating talent of stage feeding.
Whoever saw poor Suett as the lawyer in 'No Song no Supper,' tucking
in his boiled leg of lamb, or in 'The Siege of Belgrade,' will be
little disposed to question my testimony to the fact." From this
account, however, it is manifest that the difficulty of "stage
feeding," as Kelly calls it, is not invariably felt by all actors
alike. And probably, although the appetites of the superior players
may often fail them, the supernumerary or the representative of minor
characters could generally contrive to make a respectable meal if the
circumstances of the case supplied the opportunity.

The difficulty that attends eating on the stage does not, it would
seem, extend to drinking, and sometimes the introduction of real and
potent liquors during the performance has led to unfortunate results.
Thus Whincop, to whose tragedy called "Scanderbeg," published in 1747,
added "a List of all the Dramatic Authors, with some Account of their
Lives," &c., describes a curious occurrence at the Theatre Royal in
1693. A comedy entitled "The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot," written
by one Higden, and now a very scarce book, had been produced; but on
the first representation, "the author had contrived so much drinking
of punch in the play that the actors almost all got drunk, and were
unable to get through with it, so that the audience were dismissed at
the end of the third act." Upon subsequent performances of the comedy
no doubt the management reduced the strength of the punch, or
substituted some harmless beverage, toast-and-water perhaps, imitative
of that ardent compound so far as mere colour is concerned.